A Convicted Stock Manipulators Guide to Investing

By Marino Specogna

Marino Specogna is a convicted stock market manipulator who exposes in a straight forward manner the deceptive techniques used by manipulators and traders to scam your hard earned dollars. The book goes into detail on the factors an individual investing in the stock market should be alerted to, to avoid being scammed.

Included in the book are details on company share structure, tricks of manipulators and crooks on how to create share positions, facts never before disclosed in written form. After reading the book an individual will know how a scam deal is initiated, how the scam is furthered and how the manipulator manipulates a stock. The methods of a manipulator are exposed and can be detected by the reader in real time deals currently trading.

This book may reveal methods that shock you and will leave you shaking your head in disbelief for a long time to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 4, 2003
• ISBN: 9780595744091

Marino Specogna

Marino Specogna is a convicted stock manipulator receiving the longest trading ban and ban from acting as an officer or director of a public company in history at the time. He is referred to as egregious, a notorious scoundrel, the term never used before to describe a convicted manipulator.

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All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Marino Specogna

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Writer’s Showcase

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

ISBN: 0-595-26466-2

ISBN: 978-0-5957-4409-1 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

I dedicate this to my wonderful, understanding,

strong wife Natalie, my two awesome daughters, and

my incredible family.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

—-Albert Einstein

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Some Basic Author facts

Vancouver, Canadian and American

Stock Deals

Typical Scam Deal

Scam Deal Structure

Promotional Methods, Mail outs, Boiler Rooms

Mailing Lists

Boiler Rooms

The Business of Promoting

The Pump and Dump

Management Credibility

In Review Important Factors and Tricks To Watch For

Applying the Factors to a Real Time Trading Deal

Very Bad Scenario

Be Wary Of Private Placements

NORTEL

The Theory of Supply and Demand

BREX type Canadian Scams

Confirmation of Results

High Volume Trading, High-Priced High Capitalization scams

Structure Of Financings Suggesting Scam Deals

Offshore Havens

The Missing Factor Of A Scam Deal

Investment Professionals

Newsletter Writers

Enforcement Authorities

Financial Statements, reading Stock Charts

Reading Stock Charts

Reading Financial Statements

Some very real examples are these.

Market Disclosure

The Market is about Emotions

Comprehensive Review Service

IPO Financings

Manipulated deal pitfalls

About the Author

Terms Used

Preface  

A brief introduction on myself, to establish my credentials is provided initially. Then I provide a thorough description of typical deals to avoid with detailed information on how to spot certain shenanigans that should make you wary of a particular stock and thus avoid investing in it. I will tell you there is no other book with this information and after reading it you will know more about manipulated deals than any stock analyst, the general public and any enforcement agency.

Where to start?

Some information on myself would be a good starting point. This will help establish my credibility in regards to the information I am putting forward.

My name is Marino Specogna. I was born on the remote Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada. This previous sentence has been repeated in this manner a few times in the past before tribunals and judges. I think it is a good introduction. I was found guilty of a number of Securities Law violations locally in British Columbia, Canada. I was found guilty of stock market manipulation, of failing to file Insider Trading reports, of distributing securities without a prospectus exemption, and guilty of a number of other allegations including that I had traded well over 60% of a particular company’s outstanding stock.

The local Securities Commission, found me guilty after a prolonged investigation from 1989 to 1994, and a resulting proceeding before a Securities Commission Tribunal. The Tribunal consisted of three members of the Securities Commission. The Securities Commission took a period of seven years from the initial investigation commencing to the sentence being delivered after the Tribunal. The Tribunal hearing took place over a five day period in 1994. The decision was reserved by the hearing chairperson, to a later date, that later date occurred in 1996.

During the time from 1994 until 1996, I had agreed to a temporary Cease Trade ban in a particular company. I had agreed in 1994 just before the Tribunal hearing commenced to this temporary ban. I agreed to a temporary ban for two reasons, one was to delay the hearing to a few months later, buy me time, and the other was to throw the Commission into believing myself to be a gullible market participant. The two year time from the end of the hearing up to the decision being returned, was a time period of my exploiting the system put into effect by the local Securities Commission. In the Decision returned by the Hearing Panel the term egregious was used to describe me, not a very complimentary term.

Most shocking would have to be the decision, a 20 year trading ban and a 20 year prohibition from acting as a director or officer of a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia Canada, and penalties in the form of a fine and costs.

The ban was shocking due to the fact all the high profile Securities Commission decisions before my Hearing and after my Hearing always returned more lenient bans and on the odd occasion stiffer financial fines. One prominent individual accused of defrauding over 10,000 investors, of over 200 million Canadian dollars was only given a 10 year stock trading ban in British Columbia. Let me identify the individual as F. B. since his case is progressing before the court system. F. B. it should be noted, that the firm he controlled spent money on personal items right out of the company bank account. At one point for six months, the company had a short television ad before the most watched newscast in British Columbia. I myself could not believe the ads with the references made in regards to the promised high interest rate of returns and wondered why the firm was not disciplined sooner for placing the ads. With my knowledge, I knew the firm to be a scam deal. The company was put into receivership by the local authorities finally after the Accounting firm that conducted the Audits relayed the audit information.

The term egregious is the term not used by the Commission to describe any other convicted manipulator, promoter, or stockbroker. In any other decision returned by the Securities Commission, egregious has never been used since, or before. It suggests I was the biggest stock manipulator to be tried by the B.C. Securities Commission. I am viewed as the most notorious stock manipulator in the history of the British Columbia securities market and have been vilified by the Commission and the industry. The Securities Commission investigators and lawyers were so incensed with my actions and behavior before the three panel members that they could not think straight. In fact, my actions and behavior before and after the Hearing disturbed the lawyers and investigators just as much.

The fun did not end there; two other proceedings resulted from this investigation and process. I was charged by the Securities Commission investigator with breach of three Securities Act violations in Provincial Court. Usually these types of charges are filed by a police force, in British Columbia, it would have been the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, (RCMP).

These three charges formed a part of the Securities hearing and were heard a year before the charges were laid. Two years after the Securities hearing, a decision was returned. In the decision, I was found to have committed the three charges with all the additional charges made by the Securities Commission. However, in the Provincial Court hearing a plea agreement was struck where I would plead guilty to the one count of failing to file insider trading reports.

This plea agreement was reached because the Crown attorney did not believe sufficient evidence existed for the other two charges that were laid. The Crown representing the Provincial Government did not believe evidence existed for the charges. Out of all the allegations made by the Securities Commission, they put forth the three charges they believed they had enough evidence to prosecute with, but the Crown could not prosecute on the evidence the Securities Commission garnered. Not because of some Law that forbids disclosure but simply because a lower standard of proof exists in a Securities Commission procedure. In a real court, standards have to be maintained.

The Crown reviewed the Securities Commission information and no one, not even investigators with the Securities Commission or the RCMP Commercial Crimes Section could understand what had taken place in regards to relating the charges and the activities taking place. They knew I had accounted for the majority of the stock trading in the particular deal, trading millions of shares, but did not understand what it meant.

The only reason no one could understand what had taken place was the fact that none of these people had ever been involved in the Securities Market. None of them had ever tried to deceive or beat the system that exists. They were all working on theories and information that, past supposed manipulators, had previously provided some clues to manipulations when these earlier manipulators had previously pled guilty to manipulation schemes.

I will reiterate the following fact. You are learning from the most notorious and best stock manipulator. This fact is the main distinguishing difference that you as a reader will have over others who have not read this book. Of course, the exception being the manipulators out in the world who continue to manipulate markets and have not been caught. After you finish